You Always Were (And You Always Will Be)
by secondsandhours
Summary: She's been here since the beginning. This life isn't possible without her. [Edited and reuploaded.]


**I posted this once before, and then when I went back and proofread it, I found some mistakes and things I wanted to change or add. It's not a lot of things, but it's enough to make me want to repost this. So there's a chance you've read it before. This is just the edited version. Thanks for reading, you guys. This is my first fanfiction in seven years, and I was very reluctant to post it because I wasn't sure what kind of feedback I would receive. It's all positive, though, and y'all have no idea how much that means to me.**

* * *

For as long as Bellamy can remember, Clarke has been around.

The first time they meet, he's only five years old. He wonders about it a lot, because on Tuesday she's swimming around in Mrs. Abby's belly, and then on Saturday she's sleeping in a light yellow car seat in his living room. Bellamy wonders why she's pink, why she cries so much, why she's always so tired, why she only has a soft tuft of yellow hair on her little baby head. His mom takes the questions patiently as they come, answering every single one of them when they pop from his mouth.

"It's because her blood vessels are really close to the top of her skin, so it turns her skin a pinkish color," she answers as she clears magazines and coloring pages from the coffee table.

"Babies can't talk, so they cry to let the grown ups know when they want or need something," she says while she washes the dishes in the kitchen sink.

"She has to rest all the time to build up strength. Why do you think I make you take naps all the time? How do you think you got so strong?" she laughs and pokes him in the stomach when she tucks him into bed for the night.

"Some babies are born with no hair, some are born with a lot of hair, and some in between. You had a lot of hair when you were born. We thought you were a werewolf," she jokes, and he giggles.

He likes playing with baby Clarke. The grown ups keep reminding him how breakable she is, but he isn't so sure. She seems pretty strong to him. She laughs at him a lot, and it makes him laugh too. Her eyes are big and bright blue and they remind him of the sky in the summertime when there's no clouds. She doesn't do very much, but Bellamy doesn't really care. He likes her anyway.

(He asks his parents for a new baby sister a couple weeks after Clarke is born, and seven months later Octavia comes into the world.)

* * *

When Bellamy is thirteen years old and in the seventh grade, worrying less about playtime and the little girl next door and more about growing up and the girl in his math class who has curly brown hair and smiles at him all the time, Clarke is eight, and she's the most annoying, know-it-all eight year old he's ever met.

She and Wells and Octavia spend every day after school sitting at the dining room table eating Oreos dunked in cups of milk while cartoons play on the TV that's visible from the kitchen. It's been going on for so long that it doesn't phase him to see the other kids there anymore. Wells and Clarke's parents all have really important jobs that keep them really busy, so Aurora takes care of the two of them during the day until their parents come to pick them up.

(There's been a lot of times, though, when the adults have had to stay at work too late to warrant getting the kids. So the three of them have had their fair amount of sleepovers that start with squealing too loudly over Xbox games and end with a tangled mess of limbs and blankets on the floor.)

Right now, it's only four o'clock, and they're still in the kitchen. "You're wrong, Wells," Clarke is saying. "SpongeBob is a grown up. How would he work at the Krusty Krab if he was a kid, huh? How would he live without his parents?"

"It's a cartoon, Clarke. He's a talking sponge. There's a yellow sponge just like him in the sink at my house, but it doesn't talk. I think he's a kid," Wells retorts before stuffing another soggy Oreo in his mouth.

"He's a grown up," she insists. "Bellamy, tell Wells that SpongeBob is a grown up."

Bellamy turns to the three younger kids. "I don't care about SpongeBob, Clarke. Cartoons are for babies." He kicks the refrigerator door closed with his foot and sets his coke on the counter. (He likes to claim he's too old for Oreos and milk. I'm thirteen now, mom. I'm in the seventh grade. Stop treating me like a baby.)

"If it's for babies, then how come my dad thinks SpongeBob is funny, hm? I bet you're lying. I bet you actually do like SpongeBob." Clarke's voice is snooty and high pitched and cocky and Bellamy wishes she would just shut up about SpongeBob already.

"She's right, Bell!" Octavia pipes up. "You were watching SpongeBob yesterday in your room."

He really can't believe his sister. She's supposed to take his side. He leans over and thumps her on the shoulder. "Shut up, Octavia! You don't know anything," he shouts, just as Aurora walks into the kitchen. It takes Octavia all of two seconds to start tattling.

She listens to his sister's complaints, and then scolds him. "Bellamy Blake, what is the matter with you?"

He wants to roll his eyes, but he knows that will just end up with him being sent to his room. (He likes to claim he's too old for that, too. Aurora shows him time and time again that he isn't.) "She was getting on my nerves, Mom! Tell her to stop being so annoying."

His mother just shakes her head at him, sends stray dark hair falling down around her face. She huffs, frustrated, and pushes it back. "Bellamy, honey, you're thirteen now. Act like it, for once, please. Octavia, ignore your brother and just finish your snack." She grabs her purse from off the back of one of the kitchen chairs. "I'm going to the grocery store for a few minutes, okay? Bell, you're in charge. Let them go play in the living room or Octavia's room when they're finished eating. Don't be a dictator." And with that, she's walking out the door.

After she leaves, Clarke asks "do you know what a dictator is, Bellamy?"

He's offended, of course. He is, after all, thirteen and in the seventh grade. "Yeah, duh. I'm not stupid."

Clarke furrows her light eyebrows at his hostile tone, and looks like she's thinking better than to say what she wants to. After a second, she says it anyway. "I don't think you could be a dictator. Even though you're mean to us all the time, you're a nice person. I think you're a good leader." And as if she hadn't said anything at all, she goes right back to stuffing the Oreos in her face.

He doesn't know what exactly to say to that, so he just grumbles a "shut up, Clarke," and goes into the living room to watch TV.

(He definitely doesn't keep Spongebob on.)

* * *

(He stops paying attention to Clarke for a long time.

She's still always at his house, but she's there more than he even is. The most he sees her is in passing through the kitchen or the hallway, usually for less than thirty seconds. He's eighteen now, and he still has more important things to worry about than the little girl next door. Like the girl from his calculus class, or the girl from his physics class, or the girls - plural - from his business class….

He doesn't notice the ways Clarke is different. He doesn't notice the blush that paints her cheeks when she sees him, or the way she averts her eyes from him when he looks at her, or the way she gets really quiet when he comes around. He doesn't notice much about her at all.)

* * *

It isn't until years later that he actually sees her again. He really wishes it was under better circumstances.

He's moved out of his parent's house by now. He's living in a shitty run down apartment he shares with Atom (who's into Octavia) and Miller (who's into him) and Murphy (who's into being a huge asshole all the time). He okay with all of that, because it's the first thing that's ever really been his. He works to help pay for this place. His parents cannot ground him here. They cannot kick him out of here. More importantly, they cannot kick his girlfriends out of here when they stay too late. He invites Octavia over on the weekends and during breaks, and he goes home fairly often as well, but there's a nice amount of space he's put between him and his childhood. He loves the independence, the freedom. He swears he wouldn't trade it for anything.

Until the night he gets a phone call from Abby Griffin, letting him know that he's wrong and he would in fact trade it for something.

It's eleven at night when she calls, and as soon as he answers and she says his name, he knows something's wrong. His blood runs cold but his face gets too hot and he stops breathing, just waiting for her to tell him whatever it is that's happened. It was a freak accident, she tells him. There was a gas leak in the restaurant, and when the stove in the kitchen was lit, the flames hit the small, unnoticeable stream of gas dribbling down the wall. The entire place burned to the ground, and not everyone was lucky enough to get out.

Among the unlucky were his mother and his father, and her own husband.

He's listening the words but he's not actually hearing them, just sitting there frozen while she cries on the line and tells him he has to pick up Octavia and get to the hospitable. He hears himself murmur "okay," and then he's hanging up and rushing out to his car.

The drive is only across town, not even twenty minutes, but it's the longest drive of his entire life. He doesn't know what he'll say to Octavia when he gets there. All he knows is that things are about to change for good. Things are never going to be the same.

He pulls into the driveway of his parents' home and tries not to think about the fact that he's never going to see them there again. Of course, trying not to think about it makes him think about it, so he has to take a couple deep breaths before he walks in to ruin Octavia's life too. He makes his way inside, feeling like he's on autopilot.

(He keeps wishing this is just a really long, really realistic nightmare. He wants to never take this journey again.)

He doesn't expect to see Octavia hanging out in the living room with a group of friends, however. He sees Wells and Jasper and Monty and Monroe and Harper and while they're all people he's come to know pretty well, he doesn't want to do this in front of them. There's no avoiding it, though. Octavia takes one look at his face and is as quick as he was to figure out that the world has flipped.

He tells her the basics: there was an accident. I don't know all the details. Abby called me. We have to go to the hospital right now. His sister is a sobbing mess, and her friends are looking from their seats in the living room, awkward and sad and hurting for the Blake family that has just been dwindled to two.

He doesn't bother to make sure they all leave and get home safely. They all drive, so he trusts they'll take care of themselves.

They make it to the hospital in record time. Being with Octavia has grounded him a bit, so he's not so stuck in his head. (He's not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.) They ask the nurses at the front desk where to go, and they take the stairs up to the third floor instead of the elevator. Neither of them can stand to sit still right now. They turn a couple corners and then they spot Abby talking to one of the nurses. Bellamy isn't at all surprised to see the woman appear so put together. She's a surgeon; she gets paid to stay calm, even when the world is ending. She sees Bellamy and Octavia a second later and cuts off the conversation with the nurse. She hurries over to the two kids (because in this moment, that's what they are) and throws her arms around them and it's so motherly and loving that Octavia bursts into tears again and Bellamy has to force himself not to slide to the ground. With every minute that passes, he feels more and more like the wind is being knocked out of him. He thinks he's forgetting how to breathe.

"Can we see them?" Octavia whispers. Her voice is thick with loss. "I really want to see them."

"I don't know if that's the best idea," Abby starts. She looks to Bellamy to gauge his opinion on it. After a second, he nods slowly.

"Let her."

Abby holds his gaze for a minute, making sure he won't change his mind, and then she puts her hand on Octavia's shoulder and leads her towards the nurse's station. Before they talk to any of them, however, they stop to talk to Clarke.

She's been sitting in a chair, silent, and Bellamy hasn't noticed her until now. She looks the way he feels. Her yellow hair is in a messy braid, her blue eyes are dull and bloodshot, and her round face is puffy. Even in this situation, he can see how pretty she's gotten after these years, all soft curves and porcelain skin. She looks lost, like she doesn't know what she's doing in a hospital to begin with. She hugs Octavia, clings to the back of her shirt, and Bellamy thinks why us? Because surely, none of them have done anything so awful as to deserve this.

He sits in the seat next to her. They don't say anything to each other. They don't need to. They're going through this together. They already know what the other is thinking.

* * *

Planning the funeral proves to be a trying time for Bellamy.

For starters, he's never even been to a funeral before, so all he knows about them is what he's learned from TV and movies. He doesn't know how to order caskets, or where to bury them, or what funeral home to use. He doesn't know who to invite, or what flowers to get, or how he's going to get through this without losing the last of his sanity. Luckily (and isn't that funny, that anything about this ends up being lucky) his father's lawyer, Marcus Kane, gives him a call before he gets too far into it. He lets Bellamy know that he has his parents' wills, and that he and his sister can come in for a reading whenever they're ready. Bellamy actually gives a little sigh of relief. If his parents had to leave him like this, at least they left him with some instructions on what to do after they were gone. He lets Kane know that he and Octavia will be there in the morning.

The wills both state that, because they have no living relatives aside from their children, they are to be cremated instead of buried. They also state that all money will be split equally between both children, and that they get the house, as it's paid off and it would be their best bet to just stay there. Octavia is to live with Bellamy until she is eighteen years of age, or until she's older if both siblings agree on it. Everything else, any possessions and belongings, are to be talked about between the children. They can do what they please with all of it.

Bellamy won't admit it to anyone, but he feels a little bit of weight lift from him that day. It's like they knew exactly what problems he would have in this situation, and like the amazing parents they were, they took care of it for him.

With all of that over with, he makes sure their bodies get cremated. He and Octavia pick out urns that they'll keep them in for the time being. It's emotional, of course. But it's a sign that life is going to get some routine again soon. They're both grateful for that.

* * *

They do go to Jake Griffin's funeral. It's small and beautiful. Bellamy and Octavia sit on either side of Clarke in the front row while her mother stands at the podium and makes the speech all the guests expect from her. Clarke stares at everything but the casket: the cars outside in the parking lot, the giant chandelier hanging overhead, her hands. She picks at her nails until they're short, bloody nubs. When Abby says Clarke's name and motions for her to go up and give a speech, Clarke takes one look at the people around her and then darts for the door. The guests start mumbling, and he tells Octavia to help Abby out. And then he runs out after Clarke.

He finds her crouched behind her mother's car. She's pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes, and her breaths come out in heavy gasps. Even from where he stands, he can see her shaking. The tremors rock her body in waves, seizing her up every couple of seconds. He knows what's happening instantly: she's having a panic attack.

"Clarke, hey," he says gently. He kneels in front of her and carefully wraps his hands around her wrists, trying to pull them away from her eyes before she hurts herself.

(It's an odd gesture, considering the hurt she's feeling is probably a lot worse than the hurt that would come from that. He does it anyway.)

"Clarke, listen to me. You have to breathe. You have to tell yourself to calm down."

She meets his gaze, blue eyes wide and scared. "I don't know what's happening to me. I just couldn't stand up there in front of all those people, Bell. I couldn't do it. I'm not as strong as my mom. I don't know how I'm supposed to do this. And I don't know how you're doing this! How are any of us going to survive this?" She's verging on hysteria, and Bellamy knows he has to pull her back quick before she breaks. He grasps her arms a little tighter and pulls her closer to him.

"You're just as strong as your mom, Clarke. We're going to survive this, because we're strong. This is fucked up, and horrible, and it might be the worst thing that's ever going to happen to us. But we're going to get through it, together. We've been there through everything for each other for our entire lives. We're not going to stop now. So, Princess, I'm going to sit here, and you're going to calm down. It's okay to break down, and it's okay to freak out. But you're not going to do it here. Do you understand me?" He thinks his words shock her into stilling for a moment. Hell, they shock him into stilling for a moment. She stares at him intently before she nods slowly.

He pulls her the rest of the way into his grasp, holding onto her firmly. He keeps reminding her to focus on his breathing and match it with her own. He thinks back to when they were children and she fell down a couple steps while she played with Octavia. He remembers how Clarke had started wailing, and the sound had hurt him deep in his bones. He had shouted for Abby and Aurora, his voice terrifying and on the edge of tears. They had run out in fear to find him rocking her back on forth on the ground, trying to shush her and comfort her. He almost hadn't wanted to let her go when Abby pulled her away. He told his mom what had happened through a lump in his throat, and when Abby told them she only had a scraped knee, he almost fell down himself. He'd forgotten all about that day, but rocking her here, now, in very much the same manner, he was reminded of just how unbreakable Clarke Griffin is.

* * *

(He rocks her until he actually lulls her to sleep. When Abby comes looking for them and finds them in that familiar position on the ground, she has the same memory Bellamy had minutes before. Only, she isn't thinking about how not-fragile her daughter is.

She's thinking about the one person who has always been able to take a broken Clarke and put her back together.)

* * *

Life goes on. She actually stops coming around for a couple weeks. Bellamy and Octavia chalk it up to her being in mourning. It's actually because she's not exactly sure how to act around the Blake siblings now, when they seem to be taking everyday in stride while she wilts in her bedroom even though their loss is twice that of hers.

They would never compare their pain with hers. They wouldn't try to make it a competition, and she knows that. She just feels like she's being a little unfair to them; a little selfish. She can't help the guilt. Some days, it threatens to eat her up from the inside out. But when it gets too overwhelming she thinks back to that evening in the parking lot, and pushes it down until it's not choking her anymore. Bellamy's become a bit of an anchor for her.

Lately, after her mom goes to sleep, Clarke sneaks out into the backyard in the middle of the night and sits on the swing set that her father and Mr. Blake had built for her and Octavia to play on. It's old, and Clarke barely fits into it anymore, but it's a piece of him. A piece of both of them. She thinks about inviting Octavia over to sit on it with her soon, after she figures out how to talk to her best friend again.

She sits out there for hours at a time. Sometimes she cries. Sometimes she hums. Sometimes she pretends she's eight years old again and the swing is the closest she'll ever get to flying. Sometimes she just leans back and looks at the stars and thinks about how much she wishes she could be one. She has enough fire in her heart, she's sure of it. She wonders about what it would be like to burn so bright people from light years away were able to see you.

Lonely, probably. It sounds romantic in theory, but people would burn up if they got too close to her.

She can't become a star, she decides. She already is one.

* * *

Bellamy sees her swinging at night. She's done it every night for two weeks, and every night he's watched her to do it. (Which is, he admits, slightly creepy. But he's concerned.) She doesn't do anything other than sit there and swing for hours. She goes inside just before dawn breaks every night, probably so she doesn't get caught by Abby. He guesses she's having a hard time sleeping. He doesn't blame her. He gets about eight hours every two days.

One night, after he sees her go out to the swing set, he decides it's time she has some company.

She doesn't acknowledge him when he walks up, or even when he sits next to her. She just keeps staring at the sky. He becomes hyper-aware to the noises surrounding them in the silence. The crickets chirping sound almost deafening in his ears.

"Do you remember when they were building this swing set and you wanted to help so badly but accidentally smashed your thumb with the hammer when you finally got the chance?" she asks.

He does. "I thought I had broken it, and your dad just put a band-aid on it and told me I'd be fine."

"And then my mom checked it, and it turned out you actually had broken it." He thinks he hears a bit of a smile in her voice, but he can't tell in the darkness.

He breathes a laugh. "I told your dad I would never trust him again. Except I did, when he told me the moonshine on the table was actually cream soda. And then I told him again I would never trust him again."

She actually is laughing now. It's small and lacking a lot of humor, but it's something. "You always did, though. He was just that kind of guy." The grief returns to her voice, and she goes silent again.

He wants to say something to her, but he doesn't really know what he can say. No words are going to make this easier on him, so it wouldn't be any different with her. He doesn't have to say anything, it turns out.

"I'm sorry I've been avoiding you guys. I just…I feel wrong being around you two when you're actually getting through the days and I'm one wrong look from ending up back where I was in the parking lot. You guys lost both of your parents, and I still have one of mine. It just feels unfair to you somehow." She faces him while she talks, and his eyes have adjusted enough in the darkness to see the shadows under her eyes and the frown on her face. He thinks again about how pretty she is - only pretty doesn't seem like the right word for Clarke. She is pretty, but she's more than that too. He thinks striking fits her better. He fights the urge to trace the contours of her face.

"It's okay," he says instead. "And don't you dare feel sorry. It's not a competition about who lost more. It's an equal amount of pain. You loved my parents just as much as we loved your dad. You're allowed to get through this however you need to." And there it is again, him telling her she's allowed to hurt. She feels pressured by Abby, sometimes, to just put on a front and get through it. It's nice to hear someone tell her she doesn't have to do that.

She shoots a small smile at him and then looks down at her lap. "You know, it's funny," she says. "When I was thirteen, I would have given anything to sit and talk to you like this. Sometimes, I don't feel like I can say a lot of stuff to people. Even Octavia. Most people just don't see eye to eye with me. But you, Bell," she pauses and takes a deep breath. Her eyes find his again, and they're a little brighter than before. "I feel like you do see eye to eye to me. I feel like we're equals a lot of the time."

It's not an outright admission of her feelings for him, but he hears it between the lines. She knows he caught the subtext, and she looks a little frightened that she was so honest with him about it.

"I know," he says. "Even when I didn't know, I think I knew." He doesn't tease her about it. He doesn't turn it into a joke to make it less awkward or anything. It's not awkward to begin with. And he doesn't hint at his feelings in return. Not because they're not there, but because he's trying to allow Clarke her time to get things off her chest. He'll get the chance to tell her eventually. Right now is about her.

"I don't want it to get weird now, Bellamy. Don't let it get weird." She sounds seriously worried that he's going to let this change things.

He looks her directly in the eyes when he replies. "Don't worry, Princess. Nothing's weird. Everything's just as fine as it was twenty minutes ago."

She smiles at him again and then looks back at the stars. He takes the moment to study her features, and then he slowly grasps one of her hands in his and looks up at the stars with her.

They sit like that for a good while, settling back into a comfortable silence, until the horizon turns blue through the trees surrounding the yard.

He walks her up to her back door and tells her to get some sleep. She kisses his cheek and says he needs to take his own advice.

(They both sleep a few hours more than usual.)

* * *

Octavia doesn't know how it happened or what changed, but one day Clarke just starts spending all of her time back at the Blake residence.

Neither her brother or her best friend tell her about the swing set.

* * *

He makes a habit of sitting with her at night.

Sometimes, when she's at their house, they wait until Octavia dozes off to go outside to the driveway or back to the swing set. Other times, when she stays home, she sends him a text and tells him where she is, and he goes out and finds her. It's therapeutic to them both, having this time alone together to talk about whatever they want. They don't judge each other. They just let each other vent, and let the other know they aren't alone in their feelings. Clarke tells him about Finn, the whole story, about how he fell for her and they slept together, and then she found out he had a longtime girlfriend. (Bellamy's mad about this. No one has the right to do that, ever. Especially not to Clarke.) He tells her about his fear that he's going to fail Octavia. (She tries to reassure him. He doesn't give himself enough credit.) No matter what they talk about, they always end up feeling better after they go back inside.

It's during one of these nights, when they're laying in his driveway and she's telling him the names of the constellations while he sips a beer, that Bellamy kisses her for the first time.

He hadn't really meant for it to happen that way, but the alcohol was getting to his head a little bit and she was just there, beside him, washed in moonlight. She had been telling him about the Andromeda galaxy before he leaned over and pressed his mouth to hers.

He remembers the way she'd stiffened up in shock, and he'd been worried he'd crossed a line. He had pulled back, but before he could get more than a few inches away, she placed her hands on him, one on his side and one on the nape of his neck, and dragged him back down to her. She'd tasted of salt and laughter, and he had wanted to drown in her in that moment.

She wasn't an expert, but she wasn't even remotely close to being bad at it, either. Their teeth scraped a couple of times, causing her to snicker for a moment here or there. When his tongue lapped into her and ghosted against the roof of her mouth, she'd actually pulled away to laugh at the way it tickled. They hadn't taken it any farther than that that night. They'd just laid there on the concrete learning each other in a new way.

* * *

(He's pretty sure it's the best kiss he's ever had.

He spends a lot of time afterwards wanting to drown in her.)

* * *

They think they do a pretty good job of keeping it a secret. Except for the fact that Octavia has trouble sleeping through the night sometimes, so she's curious when she wakes up and both of them aren't in the house. She walks around the house, calling for them, and the absence of answers instills a little panic in her. But then she sees them through the window from her bedroom. They're laying in her backyard, and she can make out Clarke's head on Bellamy's shoulder and her leg thrown over his hips. Octavia's confused for half a second before she really processes what she's seeing and then she gasps and steps back from the window.

She can't fight the smile that forces itself onto her face. She doesn't want to. She gets an alarming amount of joy seeing them together like that.

It's the biggest cliche, and she loves it.

They go on seven dates before he actually uses the term 'girlfriend.'

It doesn't bother Clarke that it took so long to refer to her in such a way. If she's being honest, she feels like a little more than that. That doesn't keep her from grinning like a dope when she hears it for the first time. He doesn't even say it to her. He says it to Miller while they're sitting on the living room couch playing video games. Clarke just happens to overhear. She doesn't acknowledge it right then, however. Not even when he sits straight up and glances back at her to check if she did hear it. No, it's not until later on that night after Miller leaves for the apartment that she brings it up.

"I was kind of hoping you didn't hear that," he groans a little. She leans up in on her elbow and asks him why, and he says "because it's not a big enough word for what you mean to me. I think you're more than a girlfriend, Princess." His words echo her earlier thoughts. She tells him he's a lot more than a boyfriend to her.

They have sex for the first time that night. It's slow and sweet and gentle and Bellamy holds her so closely and tightly she thinks he's trying to permanently attach himself to her. She presses her hands to his shoulder blades while he thrusts into her, over her, until she's reaching her peak and falling over the edge with a whimper and a quiet moan of his name. He comes a few seconds later, his face pressed in her throat while he chokes out that he loves her over and over, a mantra from his lips.

She brushes his hair away from his face in the after glow. They're both breathing heavy and it's too hot under the blankets where their feverish, naked skin presses together. He falls asleep with his head on her chest and her fingers tracing circles down his spine.

* * *

He's not sure that he believes in heaven, but if it does exist, it's where he is when he's with her.

* * *

People tease them. They bring up soulmates. Bellamy thinks it's shit. Clarke Griffin is not the other half of his soul, and he is not the other half of hers. What she really is is the space between his fingers. She's the cinnamon scented shampoo in his shower, the smile he wakes up with, the level head to his dizzy heart. She makes him feel really goddamn poetic and romantic. Even when they're at each other's throats (which is fairly often, since they butt heads all the time), he thinks about how she makes him see the world in technicolor.

He doesn't think she's the other half of his soul, because he doesn't think his soul is good enough to be part of her. He certainly doesn't think he's good enough to be part of her. But she chooses to stick around anyway. He definitely doesn't complain about it.

They're together for years, and then when she goes to a prestigious university with a "superb medical program" to get her degree 1,672 miles away from home, they try the long distance thing. It works for a few weeks, but there comes a time when she stops picking up the phone as often, and he only catches her voicemail, that things get hard. He finally gets her on the phone after a few days, and he can't stop the jealousy and the anger from tainting his voice. They fight something awful, and she's crying when she tells him he's going to have to learn to be on his own from now on.

She hangs up on him, and they're both too stubborn to apologize. They don't talk again for another six weeks, and it reminds him of the few weeks after their parents died, when they were both walking around without their heads until they found each other. He hates that he's so fucking dependent on her now. It was never supposed to be like this.

When she comes home for Thanksgiving break, she shows up at his front door in the middle of the night. Her hair has been cut to her shoulders and her skin has lost some of its tan from the summer, but she's just as beautiful as she was before she left for school. They stare at each other for a long moment before they rush forward and clash together. He holds her until she has trouble breathing, and they both forget about their pride when they apologize. There's a lot of "I'm sorry, I was so stupid, I'm sorry, I love you"s. It's six weeks they'll never get back, but it doesn't really matter to either of them now. They've found each other again, and that's what counts.

* * *

He spends the rest of their lives showing her how much he loves her. She brings him back to earth when he gets his head stuck in the sky. They make a pretty great team.

It was always supposed to be like this.


End file.
